The performance of carbon nanotubes-polymer composites over the millimetre wave frequency band

Recently CNTs have emerged as a very promising way to develop interconnects lines which solve the limitations of transportation capacity and losses associated with the other metal lines in electronic circuits. Signal losses and scattering associated with interconnects are a significant concern for RF and microwave engineers, particularly at high frequency transmission.

CNT-based interconnects are very desirable to be integrated in the electronic components at the giga and terahertz regimes where the high transmission characteristics are desirable. This project will open the door for many potential applications in large area electronics and microwave applications.

The project consists of CNT-polymer composites characterisation and testing the performance of these composites in practical RF applications such as antennas.

The samples characterised consisted of CVD grown multiwalled CNTs (average length 1.5 µm, average diameter 9.5 nm) mixed with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) to produce composites with 10 wt.% CNT loading. The composites were screen printed unto alumina substrate to fabricate coplanar waveguides (CPW) of several millimeters in length. The scattering or S-parameters of our CPW structures were measured using an HP 8510C vector network analyzer (VNA) connected to a wafer-probing station.